Blindness, contrary to what Rainbow had always imagined, was not like being in a dark room. As her vision had slowly warped in the twilight years of her life, she thought that the end point would be like someone had taken her eyes altogether.
But, as with most things about getting older, the truth was far less kind than the blissful lie. Because Rainbow would have loved it if her vision simply went out like a light, leaving her in utter blackness. No, the key word in legally blind was legally. Because Rainbow might not have been able to see anything clearly enough to navigate around the world anymore, but she could still see.
Instead of their capacity for light and colour depleting, her eyes seemed to go into overdrive. An overwhelming chaotic rainbow, dancing in a prismatic swarm. She imagined it might have been what a sonic rainboom would have looked like to the ponies on the ground.
It occurred to her, as she wondered that, that she was the only one who never actually saw the explosion. She’d always been in the air, focusing on getting the trick right. It was everyone else who got to see the beauty.
Tears began to gather in her useless, unseeing eyes. Unseeing eyes that saw far too much. She moved in her bed restlessly, groaning to mask the sob that threatened to wrench free from her throat.
“Hey hey hey sugarcube,” came Applejack’s voice. The lights in Rainbow’s eyes dimmed as an amorphous shadowy blob that Rainbow recognised as her friend came into ‘view’, “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’m dying.”
“Rainbow Dash, you shut your fool mouth!” Applejack snapped, and Dash was immediately grateful for the chance at something to laugh at. It was hard to despair when you were laughing.
She lay there, swallowing her stubborn pride as she allowed her friend to fix her pillows and make her comfortable. It was almost funny how their elements seemed to have switched in these recent years. Rainbow dealt out harsh truths, unburdened through the failure of her body of any sense of coddling. She was dying, she had been dying for a while now, and it seemed like she’d be dying for quite a bit longer at this rate.
And throughout it all, Applejack remained, exalting loyalty to a fault. And while she did snap occasionally, said loyalty was unwavering, near to the point of divinity. She’d been the same with Rarity and Twilight and Pinkie, when it was their times to go. It was fitting that the shape Rainbow knew as Applejack seemed to have lights brimming at its edges. Lightly haloed, as if she were an angel.
But even angels couldn’t save her now. And Rainbow found that the days, though slow, took a little more from her each time. She often found herself talking to ponies who weren’t even there, until Applejack gently reminded her that they were long gone by now.
Sometimes Rainbow imagined that she was young again, her mind was still sharp enough to fool her failing eyes. It wasn’t until that calm voice, still so strong, would cut through, and the world would become bright and colourful and terrifying once more.
Suffice to say, it was terribly undignified.
And as Applejack continued in the sacred task of fussing over her blind, dying friend, Rainbow turned her eyes to what she assumed must have been the far corner of the room.
Tucked away, peeking demurely was a light yellow void. As if the world around it was kind enough to allow its stark lights and insane colours to recede a little, to permit some refuge of peace. And it could only be Fluttershy whose kindness was so intense as to bend the world around it.
But before Rainbow could call out to her, the yellow receded, and she could only assume Fluttershy had left the room. It made sense, her wife never spoke to her in moments like this, when someone else was with her. It was only when Rainbow was alone that the yellow would approach close and dominate her whole field of view, and Dash could be happy that at least her ears still worked fine when that soft, sweet voice spoke to her.
Even then, though, Fluttershy would never stay for long. And truly, Dash didn’t blame her. Nobody would want to see their wife in the state Rainbow was now in.
“There you go, feeling more comfy?” Applejack asked when her job was done, “Uh sugarcube, what are you staring at?”
Rainbow shook her head, forcing herself to look away from the spot where Fluttershy had once been.
“AJ,” Rainbow began, barking the words through her suddenly dry mouth and throat, “When I’m gone-”
“No, I told you we don’t need to-”
“When I’m gone, Applejack,” Rainbow interjected, spluttering with coughs after forcing her words out louder this time, “You’ll look after… you’ll look after everyone, right?”
The shape shifted, the light refracted around edges that contorted indescribably.
“Of course I will, sugarcube.”
Rainbow was flying. The world around her was beautiful and bold. Her keen pegasus eyes captured everything perfectly. Every ruffle of cloud, every blade of grass below, every light yellow feather in the wings on the pony in front of her.
“Rainbow, no!” Fluttershy called desperately, but Rainbow was faster; she’d always been faster. It was only a matter of time before she caught up. And soon, the inevitable happened. Fluttershy only had time to let out a faint squeak as blue hooves wrapped around her midriff and the two of them tumbled onto the plush surface of a nearby cloud.
“Rainbow!” Fluttershy gasped, the smile both in her voice and on her face betrayed how much she loved this. How much she loved Rainbow. Rainbow leaned forward and their two bodies came together like they were made for each other. They were made for each other.
And when they kissed, Rainbow didn’t want to close her eyes. Regardless of how romantic it might have been. Instead she kept them wide open and studied her wife’s face. She picked up every single soft yellow fibre of her fur, the light blush dancing beneath her coat, the way she looked so totally, utterly overcome with love.
“Shouldn’t we… get back home…” Fluttershy asked, heavy gasps interspersing the cadence of her voice.
“Why?” Rainbow replied, a devilish grin adorning her face, “We’ve got all the time in the world.”
Rainbow awoke from her dream, grounded in her hospital bed that was nothing like a cloud. Gasping for the thick, weighty air of the ground that was nothing like it was in the sky. She looked around for Fluttershy, but saw no comforting shades of yellow anywhere in the nightmarish field of taunting, dancing colour.
She cried the rest of the night.
Dying, contrary to what Rainbow had always imagined, was not like being in a dark room. She had always assumed that, when the end came, her eyes would finally fail her as she had always expected them to. But, as with most things about getting older, the truth was far less kind than the blissful lie.
It seemed like her eyes didn’t want to go anymore than the rest of her. And so they raged against the dying of the light. Colours and shades were furious, moving in a desperate kaleidoscope of overwhelming sensation as her brain fought relentlessly against the irresistible force of decay ravaging her body.
It was only by holding onto Applejack’s strong hooves that she remained grounded. And only by staring at the light yellow of Fluttershy, standing as a silent sentinel. For the first time in a while, Rainbow was glad she couldn’t see anymore.
At the very least, she wouldn’t have to see the life die in Fluttershy’s eyes as her wife left this world. Rainbow almost laughed when she very nearly announced she’d rather die than have that happen.
Life could be funny like that sometimes. Death, funnier still.
Her breathing was laboured, she didn’t know how long she’d been waiting for. They could have been in this room for hours, the three of them, or maybe it had only been a few moments.
Applejack was rambling, vague words of platitude and comfort that were all but useless now. But Rainbow didn’t mind. She would be gone soon. She wanted this to be as easy as possible for her two loved ones. The last of her five friends, whom she’d loved more than herself.
“I… I don’t want this to be the end for you,” Rainbow choked out, distantly grateful for how her rapidly deteriorating mind didn’t allow her to focus on how thin and strained her voice was, “I want you to keep living, to be happy.”
“I will Dash,” Applejack replied, voice becoming a strangled sob.
“No… no this… I love you AJ but… this is for her…” Rainbow slurred, lights in her eyes near blinding in their intensity.
“For who, sugarcube?”
Rainbow was only faintly aware of anything now but the swathe of yellow, moving closer and closer to her.
“Flutter…” Rainbow tried to say, but found herself suddenly short of breath. But it didn’t matter. Applejack would know who she meant. There could only be one pony so beautiful and kind, so sublime as to make wondrous again the harsh world of furious lights Rainbow was now in.
“Fluttershy? Oh, Rainbow we’ve been over this. Fluttershy’s… she’s not here. She’s… remember?”
Rainbow could only faintly hear Applejack, her eyes and ears and everything that still worked was far too focused on the yellow in her eyes, of the floral scent of Fluttershy’s mane. Of the multitude of whispers dancing in her ears, the sound of her wife’s sweet voice soothing her passage from this world.
“No… no she’s… she’s here…” Rainbow gasped, both for breath and for stability in the face of Fluttershy’s beauty, unmarred by the cataclysm of lights that could have blinded her were she not already blind.
“No, Rainbow she’s…” Applejack trailed off as Fluttershy got closer to Dash, and the old mare’s eyes filled entirely with soft, comforting yellow, “I’m sorry Rainbow, I don’t know what came over me. Of course Fluttershy is here. She’s been here the whole time. And she loves you so much, sugarcube, we both do.”
Rainbow wanted so much to be loyal right now, and to comfort Applejack as her old friend’s voice became a maelstrom of sobs.
But Applejack was the loyal one now, Rainbow was more concerned with truth. And the truth was that she was blind. Blinded by love and yellow, blinded by the scattering of her mind as it finally began to shut down.
But Rainbow didn’t think of that. She thought only of yellow, only of Fluttershy. And that yellow got closer, brighter, more overwhelming. It banished the chaos of her blind eyes, and it soon became the only thing she could see. And finally, that yellow turned bright enough to blind her all over again, before bleeding out into perfect white.
